TODD FINDS THAT HE HAS GOT OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN INTO THE FIRE.
After this little explanatory conversation between Ben and Sir Richard
Blunt, the reader will probably guess that Todd's evil fortune had
actually carried him to that very house in Norfolk Street, Strand,
occupied by the Hardman family, to which he, Sir Richard, talked of
going to, to give instructions to his officer, and in which resided the
identical Julia, that Ben had carried home, beer and all, in the shower,
and to whom his large heart had become so deeply attached.
Todd could hardly have fairly expected to be way-laid by such a
conjunction of events; and certainly when he laid himself down so
comfortably and easily in the bed at the lodging-house for the luxury of
a few hours' sleep, for which, if sleep he could, he had paid the
moderate price of three guineas, he little dreamt that his enemies were
rallying, as it were, around that house, and that in a short time their
voices would be actually within his hearing.
Truly it seemed as though there were henceforth to be no peace in this
world for Todd; although, by circumstances little short of absolutely
miraculous, he did continue to avoid absolute capture, near as he was to
it at times.
The great fatigue he had undergone, combined with the little refreshment
he had taken at the public-house in Hollywell Street, induced a feeling
of sleep in Todd's frame; and after he had lain in the bed at the
lodging-house for about a quarter of an hour, and found the house
perfectly still, and that the bed was very comfortable, he pulled the
clothes nearly right over his face, and fell fast asleep.
Nothing but sheer fatigue could have given Todd so unbroken a repose as
he now enjoyed. It was for an hour or more quite undisturbed by any
images calculated to give him uneasiness; and then he began--for there
was some noise in the house--to dream that he was hunted through the
streets of London by an infuriate mob; and by one of those changes
incidental to dreams, when the reason sleeps and imagination ascends the
mental throne, he thought that the heads of all the mob were armed with
horns, like those of cattle, and that they come raging after him with a
determination to toss him.
This was not a dream upon which any one was likely to be very still for
any length of time, and Todd groaned in his sleep, and tossed his arms
to and fro, and more than once uttered the word--"Mercy!--mercy!"
Suddenly he started wide awake as a knock came at the door and roused
him. Todd blessed that knock at the moment; for by waking him it had
rescued him from the dream of terrors that had been vexing his brain.
He sat up in bed, and for a moment or two could hardly collect his
scattered senses sufficiently to assure himself that it was all a dream,
and that he was in the lodging-house in Norfolk Street; but the brain
rapidly recovers from such temporary confusions; and Todd, with a long
breath of immense relief, gasped out--
"It was, after all, but a dream--only a dream! Oh, God! but it was
horrible!"
He fell back upon the pillow again; but sleep did not again come to him,
and he began to feel a vague kind of curiosity to know who it was that
had knocked at the door; and yet, he told himself, that it could not
matter to him, for that in a house like that, of course, there must be
plenty of people coming and going, and that, although the persons who
kept it might control noises within the house, they could not possibly
have any influence upon the knocker.
"Oh, it's all right," said Todd. "It's all right. I will sleep again--I
must sleep again; for it yet wants hours and hours to the night, when I
may, at least, make the attempt to get off from--from England for ever!"
A faint sort of doze--it could not be called a sleep--was coming over
Todd, when he suddenly heard the sound of voices; and he was startled
wide awake by hearing his own name pronounced. Yes, he clearly heard
some one say--"Todd!"
In a moment he sat up in bed, and intently listened. He held his breath,
and he shook again, as his imagination began to picture to him a
thousand dangers.
There were footsteps upon the staircase, and in a few moments he heard
persons go into the next room--that is to say, the front one to that in
which he lay, the room that he had paid for a few weeks' occupation of,
and which was only divided from that in which he lay by a pair of
folding-doors, that he knew were just upon the latch, and might, at any
moment, be opened to discover him.
He then heard a female voice say--
"I do wish you would be quiet, Mr. Ben."
"Ah," said another voice, "keep him in order, Julia, for he has been
quite raving about your beauty as we came along the street, I can tell
you. Do you think the servant will be able to find your father?"
"Oh yes, Sir Richard. If ma were at home she could have said at once
where he was; but Martha will find him, I dare say."
Todd threw the bed-clothes right over his head. It was no other than Sir
Richard Blunt who was in the front-room of that diabolical
lodging-house, and Todd looked upon himself as all but in custody. His
sense of hearing seemed to be preternaturally acute, and although the
bed-clothes covered up his ears, and he could not be said to be exactly
in his usual state, inasmuch as terror had half deprived him of his
reasoning powers, yet he heard plainly, and with what might be called a
perfect distinctness, every word that was spoken in the front room.
Perhaps, even in the condemned cell of Newgate, Todd did not suffer such
terrors as he was now assailed with in that lodging, where he thought he
was so safe, and which he had, as he fancied, managed so cleverly.
"Will you be quiet, Ben!" said the girl's voice again.
"Make him--make him, Julia," said Sir Richard.
"Lor bless your little bits of eyes," said Ben. "Do now come and sit in
my lap, and I'll tell you such a lively story of how the leopard we have
got at the Tower lost a bit off the end of his tail?"
"I don't want to hear it."
"You don't want to hear it? Come--come, my lambkin of a Julia--when
shall we be married? Oh, do name the day your Ben will be done for for
life. I want it over."
"Well, I'm sure," said Julia, "if you think you will be done for, you
had better not think of it any more, Mr. Benjamin."
"It won't bear thinking of, my dear. It's like a cold bath in January:
you had better shut yer eyes and tumble in."
"Upon my word, Ben," said Sir Richard, laughing, "you are anything but
gallant; and if I were Julia, I would not have you."
"Not have me? Lord, yes, she'll have me. Only look at me."
"Ah," said Julia, "you think, because you are a great monster of a
fellow, that anybody would have you; but I can tell you that a husband
half your size would be just as well, and I only wonder, after you have
made all the neighbours laugh at me, that I have a word to say to such a
mountain of a man, that I do, you wretch!"
"Laugh!" cried Ben, "Why, my duck, what do they laugh at? I should like
to catch them laughing."
"Why, you know, you wretch, that that day it rained as if cats and dogs
were coming down, you took me up as if I had been a baby, you did, and
carried me home, and me with a jug of porter in my right hand, and the
change out of a shilling in my left, so that I could not help myself a
bit, and all the street laughing. Oh, I hate you!"
"She hates me!" said Ben. "Oh!"
"But she don't mean it, Ben," said Sir Richard.
"Do you think she doesn't, sir?"
"I am sure of it. Do you, now, Julia?"
"Yes, Sir Richard, indeed I do, really now, for he is quite a horrid
monster, and I only wonder they don't put him in one of the cages at the
Tower along with the other wild beasts, and make a show of him. That's
all that he is fit for."
"Oh, you aggravating darling," said Ben, making a dart at Julia, and
catching her up in his arms as you would some little child. "How can you
go on so to your Ben?"
"Murder!" cried Julia.
"Oh, if you are going to have a fight for it," said Sir Richard, "I will
go and wait down stairs, Julia."
Bang came a knock at the street-door.
"Oh, Ben, there's ma or pa," said Julia. "Let me down directly. Do
Ben--oh, pray do. Let me down, Ben."
"Do yer love your Ben?"
"Anything you like, only let me down."
"Very good. There yer is, then, agin on yer little mites of feet. Lor
bless you, Sir Richard, that girl loves the very ground as I walks on,
she does, and she has comed over me with her fascinations in such a way
as never was known. Ain't she a nice 'un?--sleek and shiny, with a
capital mane. But you should see her at feeding-time, Sir Richard, how
nice she does it--quite delicate and pretty; and you should see her--"
The door of the room opened, and Hardman, the officer, made his
appearance.
"Your humble servant, Sir Richard. I hope I have not kept you waiting
long? I was only in the neighbourhood."
"No, Hardman, thank you, it's all right. I have not been here above a
quarter of an hour."
"I am glad of that, sir. How do you do, Mr. Ben?"
"Pretty well," said Ben, "only a little hungry and thirsty, that's all;
but don't trouble yourself about that, Mr. Hardman; I always do get
hungry when I look at Julia."
"I hope, Mr. Ben, that don't mean that you will dine off her some day
when you are married?"
"Oh, lor, no. Bless her heart, no. She loves me more and more, Mr.
Hardman."
"I am glad to hear it, Ben--very glad to hear it. But I presume, Sir
Richard, that you have some orders for me?"
"Why, yes, Hardman. There's that rascal Todd, you know, still continues
to elude us. What I want you to do is, to take charge entirely on the
river, and to make what arrangements you like at the various quays and
landing-places, and with all the watermen, so that he shall not have a
chance of escaping in that way."
"Certainly, sir; I will set about it directly."
"Do so, Hardman. Expense in this case is of no object, for the Secretary
of State will guarantee all that; but of course I don't wish you to be
extravagant on that account."
"I quite understand you, Sir Richard, and will do my best."
"That I am sure you will, Hardman; and now I will go. I shall feel no
peace of mind until that man is dead, or in the cell again at Newgate."
Todd popped his head out from under the clothes, and making the most
hideous face, he shook one of his clenched fists in the direction of the
front room. It would have been some satisfaction to him to have given a
loud howl of rage but he dared not venture upon it; so he was forced to
content himself with the pantomime of passion instead of its vocal
expression.
"I do hope, sir, we shall soon have him," said Hardman. "It seems to me
to be next thing to impossible he should escape us for long. Do you
think he has any money, sir?"
"He cannot have much, for all he has, if any, must be but the produce of
depredation since his escape from Newgate. He certainly has not
extensive means, Hardman."
"Then he must fall into our hands, sir. Julia, is that your mother just
arrived, do you think?"
"Yes, pa, it is ma's step. She has been out to get something or another,
but I don't know what, as I was out myself all the morning; but it is
ma, I know."
Mrs. Hardman came into the room, looking very red and flushed, and with
a large basket on her arm. She looked from one to the other of the
assembled guests with surprise and horror.
"What's the matter?" said her husband. "Why wife, you look
panic-stricken. What has happened?"
"Oh, gracious! where's the gentleman?"
"The gentleman?" cried everybody.
"Yes, the lodger. The highly respectable gentleman who took the
first-floor only a couple of hours ago. Oh, gracious, where is he? and a
capital lodger too, who paid in advance, and didn't mind extras at all."
"But what lodger, mother?" said Julia.
"Oh, mum, I forgot--I forgot," said Martha, suddenly coming into the
room, "I forgot to tell Miss Julia, mum, that an old gentleman had taken
the first floor, mum, and gone to bed in the next room."
"In bed in the next room?" said Sir Richard Blunt.
"I am lost!" thought Todd. "I am lost now, I am quite lost! and the only
thing I can do is to kill as many of them as possible, and then blow my
own brains out."
"Do you mean to say, ma," said Julia, "that there's a gentleman asleep
in the next room in the bed?"
"Lor!" said Ben, "you don't mean to say that, Mrs. Hardman?"
"He may be in bed, but if he is asleep," said Sir Richard, "he is a
remarkable man; of course if we had had the least idea of such a thing,
we should not have come up here; but here we were shown by the servant."
"Oh, yes, it's all that frightful Martha's fault. I'll--I'll
kill--no--I'll discharge that odious hussy without a character, and
leave her to drown herself! For Heaven's sake go down stairs all of you,
and I'll go and speak to the old gentleman, and apologise to him."
"Let me go," said Ben, "and roll on him on the bed, and if that don't
settle him I don't know what will."
"Shall I apologise to him?" said Sir Richard.
Todd nearly fainted when he heard this proposition; but when Mrs.
Hardman rejected it, and insisted upon going herself, he felt quite a
gush of gratitude towards her, and breathed a little more freely once
again.